Asian dining now trending across restaurants in India

At the newly refurbished Pan Asian, ITC Maratha in Mumbai, it is impossible to take your eyes off chef Wang Peng.By Anoothi Vishal

The year of the Fire Monkey is supposed to be lucky for dabbling in showbiz or glamour. Or even just travel and adventure or simply enterprise. And one of the foods you could consume — should you want to add that dash of spice to your life, just now — are long, uncut noodles.

At the newly refurbished Pan Asian, ITC Maratha in Mumbai, it is impossible to take your eyes off chef Wang Peng. He pats the dough, dusts it, rolls it and then stretches it out with both hands.

As the long wool-like strands of noodles get formed, you begin to wonder ‘when is he going to cut them?’ Only, he doesn’t. Like a deft juggler, whose trick are unapparent to the eye, he pulls and flips, somehow holding it all together by a knot, pulling out new noodles simultaneously.

It can’t be described. It’s a hard-earned skill you need to see. When the “show” finishes, the noodles are carefully laid to rest. They’ll be boiled later and served up for dinner.

The Nobu/Morimoto classic Black Cod Miso is a must-have at most modern Asian standalones

But food aside, this spectacular kitchen theatre fits in, wittingly or not, with a larger brand plan of the restaurant to “modernise” — serve up familiar flavours of Asia with elan, or at least a twist.

Hand-pulled noodles aside, there’s sea bass on a bed of stirfry, dumplings and sushi prettily plated and inventive trendy cocktails (we sip on a Negroni, done with an Asian twist and Monkey Shoulder whisky). The image of the Oriental restaurant is being kept at bay. Even if the flavours within are “comfort”.

This is exactly the formula driving one of the most successful restaurateuring concepts across the country. Asian dining — including bits of Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Chinese and Thai — is not only trending but getting democratised as restaurants across board crack the genre.

If Indian-Chinese ruled the roost till around the 1990s — from van Chinese to the House of Ming. We saw the unlikely penchant for Japanese define fashionable eating out in the early 2000s for a decade (from Wasabi to kitty party sushi). It is now an “aspirational Asian” revolution as the bold flavours of the East get repackaged.

Aspiring to be a sort of Indian-Chinese “McDonald’s”, Yo! China had taken desi Chinese that middle-class Indians ate in red-lanterned restaurants (with dirge-like music) to a younger, mass populace.

Ashish Kapur

Now, Kapur intends to do the same with Asian food. His new brand, The Bento Café, is to come up this month at a mall in Noida.

The premise is simple: primarily Asian street food — Singapore curry puffs, Japanese yakitori, nasi goreng — served up in smart packaging at attractive prices. Kapur is rolling out five outlets “to begin with… to grow exponentially later”, he says.

That Asian (not “Sichuan” Chinese) is now trending, even at a relatively mass level, is fairly evident. At the Asian Hawkers Market at Select Citywalk, Delhi, a few months ago, kiosks selling the likes of Mochi ice-cream and takoyaki did brisk business. Something we wouldn’t have imagined even two years ago.

These observations are substantiated by Kapur’s consumer survey. “There have been three major shifts we found,” he says. The first is a shift in what Kapur calls the “hero” products. “Instead of hakka noodles, fried rice or chilli chicken, the new heroes are “pad thai, nasigoreng...even stir-fried morning glory”. The younger audience is clearly not just more aware of different flavours thanks to exposure through travel but also more “aspirational”.

Then there are shifts in terms of smarter packaging being a requisite and also engagement with diners, including by chefs who are getting more interactive and gathering large followings.

Aspiration is driving choices. Instead of the comfort of sweet corn soup, the average diner want “to learn something new”, Kapur says. This is easy in the vast repertoire of pan-Asian dining. That many of these flavours are bolder helps to keep things more “authentic”, even though there are huge caveats too (“veg” pad thai and som tum are only the two most common examples, given the Indian aversion to fish sauce).

At The Bento Café, the menu is impressive to read. There are dishes such as pan-fried duck, Malaysian black pepper crab, Japanese udon noodles… all in the range of Rs 200 per dish (and under Rs 350 for specials like the crab) in a mall.

To India via New York In Mumbai, startups such as the Bao Haus — a south Mumbai takeaway and delivery opened by a young chef-entreprenuer — are taking similar chic Asian flavours to young customers perhaps wanting to recreate their Soho experience in Colaba. “Baos are in fashion,” points out Saransh Goila, the TV chef, who also leads the quintessential work hardparty hard Mumbai single’s life.

The soft Chinese buns, of course, became fashionable, courtesy Momofuku’s David Chang before they made their way to London and other dining capitals of the world, typically used to sandwich pork belly.

For uppermiddle-class Indians, many of who have worked or studied abroad, exposure to this pop dining culture inevitably means the quest to finding or recreating it at home. The bao, in its turn, made an appearance perhaps for the first time as a pop dish in an Indian restaurant at The Fatty Bao in Bengaluru about two years ago. Since then, the trend for it as a bar snack in particular has only picked up.

Not all of traditional or classic Chinese and Japanese or Asian dishes may sell in India. But dim sum and sushi are big and form a chunk of the menu at most modern Asian diners —along with an increasing appearance of the likes of tuna pizzas and pork belly tacos, the two other dishes set to go pop in our opinion. It’s interesting that all these “modern Asian dishes” have come to us not via Asia at all, but via New York, where many of these experiments at “fusion” originated thanks to the great American melting pot.

Despite the overwhelming popularity of sushi in our midst, for instance, (including vegetarian sushi), it is a known fact that what Indian diners really like is the flavour of rice and soy over raw fish. Californianstyle rolls have got so popular in New Delhi and Mumbai precisely because of this — bunging in everything from wasabi-mayo to batter-fried crab — drowning out “fish”. And now, the newer takes on sushi being concocted in our midst, including a “sushi burger” at PaPaYa, one of the trendiest new Asian diners in Mumbai, work on this same principle.

Dumplings are another of those Asian staples now gone pop. Unsurprisingly, the ones trending the most just now are again versions that first appeared in other dining capitals of the world.

Yauatcha in Mumbai and Delhi may be particularly popular with its women-wholunch crowd. But its success has given rise to imitators “democratising” its best-known dishes. Loco Chino, a QSR chain in Mumbai, now offers the likes of truffle-edamame dumplings for a fraction of the price.

If some of these flavours, especially the bolder ones, have a natural affinity with the Indian palate, savvy chefs and restaurateurs are experimenting with others to fit local palates. At The Fatty Bao, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai, one of the star dishes on the menu is the oysters. It is a smart dish — combining chorizo, butter and panko for crispness along with the oysters.

An average Indian diner who may have balked at shucking raw oysters is enticed with the full flavours that mask the natural sea-and-salt. In a way, it is reminiscent of the way we love the butter-garlic crabs at Trishna! Aspirational, yet comfort.

The Wasabi School Spin-offs On the other hand, audience tastes are decidedly changing. You can see evidence of this in all segments. Even a traditional midmarket chain like Mainland China now has an “Asian” page on its regular Indian-Chinese menu —across the country.

“The taste preferences of people in smaller towns is different,” agrees Speciality Restaurants’ Anjan Chatterjee, but “still, they want to try new things”.

Dishes like Vietnamese rolls, Korean grills and Thai curries are thus par for the course. In the metros, the Mainland China Asia Kitchen, a new brand, is expanding, with some of the original Chinese outlets being converted to what Chatterjee calls the “Asian bistro” format (but which will still keeps to the “DNA of the parent brand”).

At the highest end, there is some credible experimenting in the genre that people have accepted. Leading it is Tian’s chef Vikramjit Roy, who may feed you an Asian lamb “lasagne” one day or an aerated Thai green curry the next or indeed Singapore-style crabs with edible beach soil and more.

Vikramjit Roy

Roy, who worked and researched in Korea and Japan extensively, combines his understanding of flavours with modern cooking techniques including (but not always) gastronomy to come up with dishes that may be inspired by “Asian” but are hardly restricted to one region.

This is also the kind of food other upscale standalones are now successfully dishing out. Much of this food is riding on the bar wave, with experimental drinks in tow. What’s interesting is that the chefs driving this trend are from what I call the “Wasabi school”.

Lamb dumplings, the Tian way: Dim sum with a twist are one of those star dishes that do wellWasabi at the Taj in Mumbai and Delhi has been a super brand that not only ushered in a change in dining culture that is well recognised, but also prepared a line of chefs confident in their knowledge of Japanese with all its allied influences, and modern cooking techniques.

While contemporary Japanese within upscale restaurants may no longer be a great business idea, it is the “Wasabi culture” that has been indirectly responsible for the sprouting up of upscale modern Asian diners — most of which ironically continue to have that Morimoto classic Black Cod Miso.

It is one of those dishes that middle-class customers still seek out at the standalones (at a fraction of the price) as also the steaks, carpaccio, and sushi rolls deemed “exclusive” till a few years ago.

Interestingly, Roy, his deputy Kaustubh Haldipur and Sahil Singh of PaPaYa (who was also Roy’s deputy) have all been part of the same team that Roy lead at Wasabi in Delhi and then ITC Hotels. For chefs like them and others in the upscale standalone segment dabbling in experimental Asian, the challenge is building local supply chains to keep costs down and restaurants profitable.

The Asian mezze platter at PaPaYa

Japanese restaurants have typically worked at 40-50% food costs, inordinately high in a business where premium restaurants work at 30% and others at even 10%. But for customers, now getting even the likes of the black cod at around the Rs 1,000 per portion mark, the Asian boom is a win-win.

(The writer examines restaurant trends, food history and culinary cultures)

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